"There's probably an element of snobbism," McClatchy said, adding that other members may not share his taste for "thrillers, detective stuff, hard-boiled noir stuff."

"I don't know, but it may simply be unfamiliarity, that people here don't sit around reading science fiction. They're rereading Flaubert, or they're rereading Richard Price. There's a man who has raised the underworld to Parnassus."